Just got back from the screening, so without further ado, a breakdown of today's events...
Got to Alan's house at about 11:45 after an hour-long drive that included three stops to get directions and/or turn around to get a turn I missed. When I came downstairs, Vic and Brian were playing DDR. The gang arrived soon after from a grub run, incl. Alan, Ashyukun, and a few others. We watched Strongbad emails until about 12:30 when Matt showed up with the tapes and ballots.
The Good Stuff
Tape 6: It's Tricky (To Make A Music Video) and Hard Knock Anime were next to each other, that made me feel good to finally give 2s. Those are the only ones I can remember specifically...
Tape 7: The goddamned Leaves of Happaness video, at last. And y'know what? I expected more. I dunno. I can't immediately recall any +2s I may have given, but I know I gave at least one.
Tape 5: I didn't get Kai's video until I saw the bumper at the end and realized it was Kai. Tom's video was great as well.
The... Not-So-Good Stuff
I have this proposal: To get a ticket to the AMV contest screening at Otakon, first you must find, thank, buy a drink, and if they'll allow you, hug five different prescreeners. Because god dammit, we deserve some recognition.
I won't name any specific videos (because I've purged most of them from memory), but I will name the guilty anime and thus finger some editors: Evangelion. Kenshin. Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. People, there is MORE OUT THERE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I haven't even SEEN Bloodlust and yet I KNOW HOW IT GOES!
To all those who think they can do a video with Final Fantasy or any videogame footage: Don't. There is not enough plot in the FMVs to turn into an AMV. That's what the GAME is for.
If you can't interlace MPEGs correctly, don't submit on VHS. If you can't send in your videos with a modicum of encoding skill, don't submit on VHS. I was so drained that by the middle of Tape 5 I was giving a +1 to some magical-girl AMV that had Snow Fairy Sugar or something in the name, just because at least it was DIFFERENT from everything else we'd seen.
Random quotes that I can still remember:
"Lensflare, +1!" - Vic (the video in question had a lensflare in the front bumper. May have been the most interesting part of it.)
"Oh, wait, it's Kai. Okay. That make sense. Now I get it. I think." - Me after Kai's video.
"+2!" - Various people after playing Vic's Shitstorm of the Century.
"We should get a discount on our prereg for this."
"What? We're war veterans."
"Oh, sure. I may know people who went to Iraq and Vietnam, but I sat through Tape 5." -Me/Vic/Bob
There are more that I can't remember, but I encourage anyone who was there to fill in the gaps. I also encourage Matt to go through our comments, pick out the most witty ones, and post them anonymously without even mentioning which videos they were for.
In any case, hopefully Tapes 1-4 were better, and hopefully the competition will be strong at the 'con. Can't wait to find out if I made it...
-DOKool





